CU-1C-1939-03 Cud

Description

Die metallurgy tells the story behind CU-1C-1939-03, the third cataloged cud on the 1939 Lincoln Wheat Cent. Working dies at the Philadelphia Mint were forged from hardened tool steel, heat-treated to withstand repeated impacts against bronze planchets, yet no die lasts forever. Stress concentrations build at the rim — the geometric edge where the die face meets the collar — making the periphery the most common origin point for catastrophic fractures. When a wedge-shaped fragment of the die breaks free, every subsequent coin struck by that die carries a raised, featureless area where the missing die fragment once resided. The size and position of a cud directly affect a coin's collectibility: large cuds that obliterate significant portions of Lincoln's portrait or the date command premiums well above those covering only rim denticles. Victor David Brenner's Lincoln design had been in production for thirty years by 1939, and Philadelphia's sustained output across those decades generated a substantial population of die break varieties that researchers continue to catalog. CU-1C-1939-03 is documented by the Cuds on Coins project and cross-referenced under the same designation.

Attribution History

• Discovered by Keynumis on ebay
• CU-1C-1939-03
• Expert attribution by Cuds on Coins

External References